


nos camarades

by forbiddenstars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 21:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16205723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forbiddenstars/pseuds/forbiddenstars
Summary: The Order of the Phoenix thanks those who served.Les Amis, in memoriam.(A short coda to the heartbreakingLa Résistance, by edgewareroad)





	nos camarades

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [La Résistance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/712520) by [edgewareroad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgewareroad/pseuds/edgewareroad). 



“Any news from the Amis? They were going to try and counter Rosier's mission, to prevent them from retrieving the weapon from Jean-Philippe and his men.” 

The silence was grim and painful. 

“No….not again..” 

Their young comrades in France had suffered so much. Loss after loss. So many young lives brutally cut short. The Order of the Phoenix was recruiting out of Hogwarts, true, but at least their recruits had finished school. Les Amis were children, every one of them. And yet the Order relied on them, asked them to risk their bodies and souls for a war that was not their own. A war of their elders. Another nation's internal struggles, spilled over. It tore ragged chasms in them full of guilt and shame. 

Dumbledore let out a shaky breath, his eyes pressed tightly shut. 

“I'm afraid...I'm afraid that…” 

He paused for a steadying breath, this unshakeable war leader of theirs, and here everyone knew. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

“The letter I received was not from Enjolras, or one of the students. It was from Madame Hucheloup, the proprietress of the cafe that our young friends used as a headquarters.” 

There was no way to soften the blow. He would just have to say it. 

“They are gone. All of them, even the young boy who lost his sister in their first mission. Rosier's men knew to expect interference, possibly from a spy in Beauxbatons. They were all killed. Our contact recovered only some of their bodies but...” 

Molly Weasley's horrified cry was joined by dozens of others. 

“All of them? Oh Merlin, but they were so…” 

So young, they all finished the sentence in their minds. So young, so brave…

So brave and so dead. 

James Potter was openly weeping, Lily a silent and stoic support at his shoulder. 

“They were children,” he whispered, “Younger than us, fighting for us, dying for us.” 

Nevermind that he and Lily were just a few years older than Enjolras had been. Every witch and wizard in the room could imagine a younger relative or friend in his stead. Molly was sobbing into Arthur’s shoulder. Her eldest son was the same age as young Gavroche, barely eleven.

“This wasn't their war.” 

And there, that was the bitterness of it. Their war, their madmen, had caused another nation's children to fight to their deaths. It hurt, knowing that children had stepped up to pay the price of their inability to stop Voldemort.

“Tell us. Read us their names again. We must remember them. Every single one of them must be remembered.” 

Murmurs of assent followed Frank Longbottom's words. 

Dumbledore nodded assent, but then raised a hand. 

“As they should be. I have one other piece of information, first.” 

He looked out at the faces before him. Younger than us, Potter had said. He too was young, though he felt it not. Dumbledore felt his age more achingly, more painfully, than ever before. He was the one leading children to their deaths. This all started with his inability. His failure to quell the initial villain, his failure to stir his fellow countrymen to rise up and stand against the creeping evil. It was his failure that led these children to take up arms, and his failure that sent the Amis to their doom. 

“Our fellow resistance workers will never have died in vain. But I received additional news at the same time yesterday of a great victory in France,” he said quietly, “Although it cost them everything, they managed to destroy the weapon during the fight. Jean-Philippe’s men suffered many losses in the crossfire, and it seems the French wing of Voldemort’s supporters will not rise for some time. Young Enjolras belonged to one of France’s own sacred pureblood families, and his death has caused significant splintering in the community.”

This was a cold comfort, and they all knew this. But at least it was something to grasp onto. A step forward, a significant gain, one they could bow their heads and be fervently grateful for. 

“Les Amis have given everything they had to offer to the cause. Let us remember them.”

He shuffled his papers and pulled out one of his own lists. Starting from the top of the page, each name was etched out carefully. 

“Eponine Thenardier,” the first to fall, the first to lay herself down, that the resistance might continue. 

“Jean Prouvaire,” he still dreamt of how much suffering the young man must have seen. 

“De Courfeyrac. Combeferre. Bahorel,” the list continued, on and on. Each one had worked wholeheartedly for the resistance. So many missions that the Order couldn’t accomplish across the strait, that they shouldered without comment. So many lost. 

“Marius Pontmercy. Cosette Fauchelevent. Feuilly.” Not a single one of them older than eighteen. Many of them, in fact, had been around fifteen.

“Grantaire,” the young werewolf who had thrown himself to the vicious cruelty of a French countryside pack in a desperate attempt to turn the tide. Barely seventeen, and after all his pain, he had died at wandpoint, fighting a war that had never promised him anything. 

“Bossuet. Musichetta. Joly.” Shame, burning and knife-sharp, stabbed him. So many lives, so many children. 

“Enjolras,” their brilliant leader. A pureblood rising above his birth, gifted among his peers, and so, so dedicated to the cause. His voice cracked at the end of the name. Although Dumbledore had only spoken to him through letters, he knew...this young man would have been among the best of his generation. And now he was gone. 

“Gavroche...Gavroche Thenardier,” the youngest boy, barely eleven. He felt his chest caving in at the thought, and had to put his hand over his face. 

Around the table, heads bowed silently. So many lights extinguished before their time. 

“We must not waste what they did for us. We will remember them and honor their efforts through ours.” 

Throughout Voldemort’s rise and fall, they kept their promise. As the tulmults and tragedies of the magical world continued, each new generation of resistance workers learned the list of names, of the children who had given their lives that they might become part of the future. France’s own Résistance grew beyond the scattered students left adrift after the deaths of their fellows, solemn in the knowledge of those young ones who gave their bodies to be the foundation.

By the time Harry Potter joined the Order of the Phoenix, the Amis were a whispered legend, murmured over by those who knew them only by name. Those who remembered that final, fatal letter, watched over Harry’s generation with anxious hearts. Molly Weasley never spoke of them again, her heart choking in her throat as she watched her children grow up, turn eleven, fifteen, eighteen, and the threat of Voldemort drew closer. 

Harry Potter read of their fates in an old journal of the Order. Any letters left from Enjolras had been saved, along with Madame Hucheloup’s final missive. By now, the world had become so desperate, so frantic, that the memory of the Amis was a quiet, beseeching prayer more than a grave remembrance. Harry read these letters and learned of a group of boys and girls his own age or younger, who had gone forth alone, without a single adult to guide or protect them. Who had staked their lives for righteousness, and paid the price without hesitation. 

He closed the book, looked quietly down at his hands. 

Silently he said, I promise, we will finish this. We will stop them.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have anything to say but sorry, maybe.  
> figuring out how the ages lined up was a bitch, might have gotten some wrong. 
> 
> I'd love to hear what everyone thinks!


End file.
